Interview: Thomas McNeish – National Product Manager Coffee at Global Beverage Solutions

Global Beverage Solutions (GBS) are leading the charge to offer great coffee in petrol stations. As fuel retailers in Australia led by the majors look for new ways to get customers in the door, GBS are ensuring ServoPro members have access to quality equipment and big brands to keep their customers happy.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and Global Beverage Solutions?

I have been involved in the coffee industry for over 10 years and worked for GBS for 4 of those years. GBS is a company that can be your complete coffee solutions. GBS have access to the leading coffee equipment in the world. This ranges from Automatic through to Traditional equipment. GBS also supply coffee and consumables that can be tailored to the convenience market. This includes: Coffee bean supply, Coffee cups, Hot Chocolate, Chai Syrups, along with the cleaning chemicals for each piece of equipment.

What makes Global Beverage Solutions different from other Coffee Machine suppliers?

One of the biggest things that separates us from other coffee companies is that we are backed by our national service team. This means we can, pre install, install & service every coffee machine that we have in our portfolio.

Everyone is talking about coffee in the retail fuel industry. What are your tips for getting your coffee offer right?

Choose the correct coffee machine and coffee blend. Then market the offering properly so the customers will see the offering is not just a coffee machine in a corner of the store that looks like crap. This will then drive sales on other products in the store because you will have repeat customers just from having a great coffee offering.

When you are visiting petrol stations what are some of the things you notice the successful sites are doing differently?

A lot of sites are more successful because they are not just offering a better coffee solution but they are also offering a better food offering at the same time. This is where again you ask about the advantages of using GBS. We have another couple of companies that come under our banner and can offer a complete solution to your customers. This includes extended Food and beverage offering which we can design and build to your customer requirements. We are in the middle of completing some new and exciting concepts that will suit the Convenience space next generation offering.

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